I Am a Refugee

Forced out of Algeria, my father and I – and millions of other Jews expelled from Arab countries – are entitled to redress.

As a sitting member of a democratic government, it might appear strange to declare that I am a refugee. However, my father, his parents and family were just a few of the almost one million Jews who were expelled or forced out of Arab lands. My father and his family were Algerian, from a Jewish community thousands of years old that predated the Arab conquest of North Africa and even Islam. Upon receiving independence, Algeria allowed only Muslims to become citizens and drove the indigenous Jewish community and the rest of my family out.

While many people constantly refer to the Arab or Palestinian refugees, few are even aware of the Jewish refugees from Arab lands.

While those Arabs who fled or left Mandatory Palestine and Israel numbered roughly 750,000, there were roughly 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands. Before the State of Israel was reestablished in 1948, there were almost one million Jews in Arab lands, today there are around 5,000.

An important distinction between the two groups is the fact that many Palestinian Arabs were actively involved in the conflict initiated by the surrounding Arab nations, while Jews from Arab lands were living peacefully, even in a subservient dhimmi status, in their countries of origin for many centuries if not millennia.

In addition, Jewish refugees, as they were more urban and professional, as opposed to the more rural Palestinians, amassed far more property and wealth which they had to leave in their former county.

The total amount of assets lost by the Jewish refugees from Arab lands is almost twice that of the assets lost by the Palestinian refugees.

Financial economists have estimated that, in today’s figures, the total amount of assets lost by the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, including communal property such as schools, synagogues and hospitals, is almost twice that of the assets lost by the Palestinian refugees. Furthermore, one must remember that Israel returned over 90 percent of blocked bank accounts, safe deposit boxes and other items belonging to Palestinian refugees during the 1950s.

Even though the number of Jewish refugees and their assets are larger than that of the Palestinians, the international community only appears to be aware of the latter’s plight.

There are numerous major international organizations devoted to the Palestinian refugees. There is an annual conference held at the United Nations and a refugee agency was created just for the Palestinian refugees. While all the world’s refugees have one agency, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Palestinians fall under the auspices of another agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

UNWRA’s budget for 2010 is almost half of UNHCR’s budget.

Equally impressive is the fact that UNHCR prides itself on having found “durable solutions” for “tens of millions” of refugees since 1951, the year of its establishment. However, UNRWA does not even claim to have found “durable solutions” for anyone.

If that is not distorted enough, let’s look at the definitions and how they are applied: normally the definition of a refugee only applies to the person that fled and sought refuge, while a Palestinian refugee is the person that fled and all of their descendants for all time. So, according to the UNRWA definition of conferring refugee status on descendants, I would be a refugee.

However, I do not consider myself so; I am a proud citizen of the State of Israel. The Jewish refugees found Israel, so too, the Arab refugees should find their national aspirations being met by a Palestinian state.

With direct negotiations resuming between Israel and the Palestinians, the spotlight will be returned to this issue. The so-called Palestinian ‘right of return’ is legal fiction. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, the supposed source for this ‘right’ does not mention this term, is not legally binding and, like all other relevant United Nations resolutions uses the intentionally ambiguous term ‘refugees’ with no appellation.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, still seen as the primary legal framework for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict asserts that a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement should necessarily include “a just settlement of the refugee problem.”

No distinction is made between Arab refugees and Jewish refugees.

In fact, one of the leading drafters of the resolution, Justice Arthur Goldberg, the United States’ Chief Delegate to the United Nations, said: “The resolution addresses the objective of ‘achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem.’ This language presumably refers both to Arab and Jewish refugees.”

In addition, every peace conference and accord attended or signed between Israel and its Arab neighbors uses the term “refugees” without qualification.

During the famous Camp David discussions in 2000, president Clinton, the facilitator and host of the negotiations said: “There will have to be some sort of international fund set up for the refugees. There is, I think, some interest, interestingly enough, on both sides, in also having a fund which compensates the Israelis who were made refugees by the war, which occurred after the birth of the State of Israel. Israel is full of people, Jewish people, who lived in predominantly Arab countries who came to Israel because they were made refugees in their own land”.

In 2008, the US Congress passed House Resolution 185 granting, for the first time, equal recognition to Jewish refugees, while affirming that the US government will now recognize that all victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict must be treated equally.

I am proud of the fact that the Knesset passed a resolution in February of this year that will make compensation for Jewish refugees expelled from Arab countries after 1948 an integral part of any future peace negotiations. The Israeli bill stipulates that “The state of Israel will not sign, directly or by proxy, any agreement or treaty with a country or authority dealing with a political settlement in the Middle East without ensuring the rights of Jewish refugees from Arab countries according to the UN’s refugee treaty.”

Before 1948 there were nearly 900,000 Jews in Arab lands while only a few thousand remain. Where is the international outrage, the conferences, the proclamations for redress and compensation? While the Palestinian refugee issue has become a political weapon to beat Israel, the Arab League has ordered its member states not to provide their Palestinian population with citizenship; Israel absorbed all of its refugees, whether fleeing the Holocaust or persecution and expulsion from Arab lands.

People like my father, the hundreds of thousands who came to Israel and the millions of Israelis descended from these refugees are entitled to redress. It is vital that this issue return to the international agenda, so we don’t once again see an asymmetrical and distorted treatment of Arabs and Jews in the Israeli-Arab conflict.

About the Author

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 14

(14)
joseph Baruhovic,
September 21, 2011 6:26 PM

the Jew refugee from Arab Countries

It was a high time to rise a question of 900 000 Jews refugee from Arab countries and put thise problem on a peace talks agenda.

(13)
Samir S. Halabi,
July 28, 2011 8:19 AM

Jewish refugees from the arab world.

When the arabs come to turns with what they did to their Jewish citizens, ie. persecuting them, threatening them, torturing them, sequestrating their real-estate, impounding their property, freezing all their bank accounts, forcing them to flee their arab homelands with nothing, only then when they finally come to terms with the crimes they committed against the defenseless jjewish communities of the arab world, then and only then can real peace be achieved.

(12)
Samir S.Halabi,
March 23, 2011 10:22 AM

Jewish refugees of the arab world

Don't you still get it! the goyim aren't at all interested in the plight of the jews whom had to flee their arab homelands in the 1940s.-50s 60s-70s. what they all left behind is today calculated in the billions of dollars. The arabs of post-palestine left behind nothing in comparison, on the contrarary, the majority weren't even born in palestine, and if they were they certainly didn't emanate from there in the beginning, they came as soon as they realized in the late 1920s 30s that the jewish people were making something of that land , so they jumped on the band -wagon. jerusalem was since the late 1840s a city witha majority of Jews living there thean the muslims and christians combined. most of the arabs living in palestine during the ottoman era were just renting from absentee landlords who resided outside of palestine, in Syria, Baghdad, lebanon, Egypt etc. these payons didn't own anything. There were only a few families who owned any land such as the Nashaibbis and a few others. many of these so called palestinians origiginated from all over the arab world, even coming from Ghana, & Nigeria, ie. black muslims, other so called palestinians (which they never wanted to be identified by only since 1964 for political reasons, to try to justify their annonymous heritage by that terrorist now thankfully dead 'Yasser Arafat, himself born in cairo Egypt who's uncle was none other than the nazi loving hitler loving jew-hating pig, Haj al-amin al husseini, the grand mufti of jeusalem from 1921-48 who spent from 1941-45 as personal guest of Adolf Hitler in nazi germany, even visiting death camps where they were genociding thousands upon thousands of jews on a daily basis, this stinkingh piece of vermin wanted to set up similar death camps to dispose of the jews of the arab world as asoon as an axis victory was in sight.

(11)
Anonymous,
September 12, 2010 7:31 PM

I, too, am a refugee

My parents fled their Arab country in the 1960's, leaving everything, including their property, behind, entering another country penniless. So that makes me, their descendent, a refugee. But who cares about Jewish refugees apart from the Jews? I won't be holding my breath for any compensation ...

(10)
Alice,
September 7, 2010 4:51 AM

There are Jewish people of every race!!!!

Guys!
Very few people outside of the Jewish community know about the Jewish refugees from Arab /Muslim countries. Or of the existance of non-European Jewry.
WE NEED TO PUBLICISE THIS PEOPLE!!!!!
One of the biggest slanders flung at Israel on a regular basis is that Israel is a racist state as 'Jews are a race'.
Letting gentiles know that we Jews come in every race will destroy this line of thinking.
By not publicising the multi-cultural / multi-racial nature of the Jewish people, we are playing into the hands of those who mask their anti-semitism, behind a thin veil of anti-zionism.
ps - using the definition of Palestinian refugees...does that mean I can now view myself as an Austrian refugee?!

(9)
Andy,
September 6, 2010 11:23 PM

I don't think you want to return to algeria. this is not about $$$

for certain bothe Jews and Palestinians lost property as a result of the State of Israel beong declared and the Jews being victorious in 1948 but I don' think with the Palestinians it's about compensation. You could pay them and the Jews from Arab lands and it would not solve the issue. It's about what they view as their land,If it was reasonable compensation to renounce claims I think it it would have been done. They want Palestine and no Jewish State in Israel. Why is that so hard to understand. If I'm mistaken and I hope I am we'll see what develops in the ongoing "peace" talks

(8)
Priscilla Schneider,
September 6, 2010 5:55 PM

Refugee from 1956 Hungary

I am a refugee from the Hungarian uprising of 1956. During WWII, my mother's extended family not only lost their home, but their lives in Auschwitz. The home was then usurped under communist rule. To date, our family has not been compensated and all questions regarding the property have been repelled by the Hungarian government. This sort of nonpayment of loss of life and property of Jews is not only a problem in the Arab world, but throughout the world. I don't know why the world populations do not respect the Jews as a people or their property, but that is the age old unanswered question.

(7)
Anonymous,
September 6, 2010 9:48 AM

Algerian jews

Unfortunately, the uniqueness of the recent history of Algerian jewry is relatively unknown to the non-French speaking Jewish communites. As a spouse of an Algerian expatriate, I heard of some quite hair-raising eposides that my spouse and her parents went through, during the years preceding Algerian independence.

(6)
Beverly Kurtin,
September 6, 2010 3:02 AM

Lies, lies, and damned lies

While Israel is blamed for everything up to and including male pattern baldness, the Jews who had everything stolen from them have been totally ignored and even among the greater portion of Jews unknown.
Islam teaches that any lie is perfectly fine as long as it grows Islam. The Germans had their propaganda master; the Arabs have thousands of propagandists.
I will bet dollars to donuts that Jerusalem is going to be the choking point for the so-called "peace talks" that will be going on every two weeks. The PA is going to demand a part of Jerusalem even though there is not one single mention of Jerusalem in the Koran.
I just pray that not one millimeter of Jerusalem be given to the Arabs...not a molecule will ever be part of any Arab country. If it is given, kiss Israel goodbye.

(5)
Raul Eluchans,
September 6, 2010 1:06 AM

western media should do their homework better

good point; the western media has never mentioned this before. they have just focused on the so called Palestinian refugees

(4)
,
September 5, 2010 6:34 PM

the palestinians (christian and muslim) are there to stay wether you like it or not, Judaism is a religion, it's not a Nationality.
Shalom

(3)
Gary Katz,
September 5, 2010 5:22 PM

What a great point!

My grandparents came here from Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. According to the Palestinian definition, I am a refugee. I would travel to the old country to demand my right of return and my grandparents' old house, but I don't want to be locked in a mental institution.
As long as Israel demands the same treatment for Jewish refugees (right of return and compensation), they will neutralize the Palestinian whining and expose the Arab hypocrisy over this issue. Israel should also go on the PR offensive and publicize how much Arab countries discriminate against their Palestinian populations.

(2)
Anonymous,
September 5, 2010 4:24 PM

Publicity for Jewish refugees

at last some-one is publicising the Jewish refugees from Arab lands many of whom struggled greatly when they were forced out of their homes.

(1)
Mindy,
September 5, 2010 3:31 PM

I am SO glad this issue has finally been brought up.

Maybe finally, the Palestinians will be forced to give up land for peace! And the Arab nations will be forced to give the palestinians citizenship among their OWN people instead always encroaching on Israel's land!

I want to know about the concept of "sin" due to Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge. The Christian concept of sin revolves around the fall of the man and the "original sin." Does Judaism view it the same way?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Adam and Eve were punished according to their actions. In other words, God laid down the conditions for Adam and Eve to live in the garden, provided they would not eat from the Tree of Knowledge. However, if they were to eat from that tree they would be punished by experiencing death. (If they had not eaten from the tree, they would have remained immortal.)

This sets down the basic principle in Judaism of Reward and Punishment. Basic to this is that every person has the choice of doing good or bad. When a person chooses "good" – as defined by God – he is able to draw close to God. In other words, every individual has a chance to "gain salvation" through his own actions.

My understanding of Christianity, however, is that the Original Sin has infected all of mankind to the point where individuals are incapable of achieving salvation through their own initiative. Man is "totally depraved" and therefore his only hope of salvation is through the cross.

This belief is contrary to the teachings of Judaism. From the Torah perspective, an individual does not need to rely on anyone else to atone for them. In Judaism, sins can be "erased" altogether by sincere repentance and a firm resolution never to repeat the mistakes.

For more on this, read "Their Hollow Inheritances" by Michael Drazin – www.drazin.com

Yahrtzeit of Moses in 1273 BCE (Jewish year 2488), on the same day of his birth 120 years earlier. (Consequently, "May you live to 120" has become a common Jewish blessing.) Moses was born in Egypt at a time when Pharaoh had decreed that all Jewish baby boys be drowned in the Nile River. His mother set him afloat in a reed basket, where he was -- most ironically -- discovered by Pharaoh's daughter and brought to Pharaoh's palace to be raised. When Moses matured, his heart turned to aid the Jewish people; he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Jew, and he fled to Midian where he married and had two sons. God spoke to Moses at the Burning Bush, instructing him to return to Egypt and persuade Pharaoh to "let My people go." Moses led the Jews through the ten plagues, the Exodus, and the splitting of the Red Sea. Seven weeks later, the Jews arrived at Mount Sinai and received the Torah, the only time in human history that an entire nation experienced Divine revelation. Over the next 40 years, Moses led the Jews through wanderings in the desert, and supervised construction of the Tabernacle. Moses died before being allowed to enter the promised Land of Israel. He is regarded as the greatest prophet of all time.

Lack of gratitude is at the root of discontent. In order to be consistently serene, we must master the attribute of being grateful to the Creator for all His gifts. As the Torah (Deuteronomy 26:11) states, "Rejoice with all the good the Almighty has given you." This does not negate our wanting more. But it does mean that we have a constant feeling of gratitude since as long as we are alive, we always have a list of things for which to be grateful.

[Just before Moses' death] God said to him, "This is the Land that I promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob" (Deuteronomy 34:4).

The Midrash says that Moses pleaded to live long enough to be able to enter the Promised Land. He surrendered his soul only after God instructed him to enter Heaven and inform the Patriarchs that the Israelites had come to their Land and that God had indeed fulfilled His promise to give the Land of Israel to their descendants. To fulfill God's will was dearer to Moses than his craving to enter the Land.

It is only natural to cling to life, and the thought of leaving this world is depressing. However, if a person develops the attitude that he lives only in order to fulfill God's will, then life and death are no longer polar opposites, because he lives to do the will of God, and when that will requires that he leave this world, he will be equally obedient.

The seventh day of Adar is the anniversary of Moses' death. He wanted to enter the Promised Land so that he could fulfill the commandments and thereby have a new opportunity to fulfill the Divine wish. He surrendered his soul willingly when he was told that there was a special commandment for him to perform, one that could only be achieved after leaving this earth.

We refer to Moses as Rabbeinu, our teacher. He not only taught us didactically, but by means of everything he did in his life - and by his death, as well.

Today I shall...

try to dedicate my life to fulfilling the will of God, so that even when that will contradicts my personal desires, I can accept it with serenity.

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